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Ed Sheeran: 'Copying Eminem cured my stammer'

The 26-year-old musician revealed on U.K. radio show Desert Island Discs that he suffered from a debilitating speech impediment as a child.

But when he was nine, Ed cured himself by rapping along to explicit song lyrics on Eminem's third album, The Marshall Mathers LP, which he had been given as a gift from an uncle.

"My parents didn't know the content of the album, and I must have been nine when it came out," he said. "And when you're nine and someone is saying rude stuff, you wanna learn it. So I learned all of the album back-to-back and he raps at such a fast pace that my stammer would go when I rapped."

He added that after discovering hip-hop through Eminem, he also rapped to the music of Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls.

The Thinking Out Loud singer was so successful in overcoming his speech impediment that he even received an award at a "stuttering gala".

Attending the event he found that many other kids had, like him, used music to improve their speech.

"I don't really know what it was for, but I went there, and there were a bunch of kids who said exactly the same thing: that singing and music stopped them stammering," he explained.

On Desert Island Discs, stars are asked to choose which songs they would take with them if stranded on a remote island, and Ed selected Eminem's 2000 smash hit Stan.

Other tracks he selected on the BBC Radio 4 show included Elton John's Indian Sunset, Damien Rice's Volcano and Stevie Wonder's They Won't Go When I Go.